Let's Walk Again!

The essence of the three days of street events in some 10 cities across Serbia is best defined by a banner early this week at Belgrade’s student demonstrations: "They think they’re going on and we think they should be stopped". The game of nerves in the biggest and longest civil protest in Serbia to date went on as this article went to press on Wednesday, December 11.

There were some more fierce clashes between the authorities and opposition in the fight for a parliamentary democracy (March 9, 1991 for example), some were longer (the protest over the arrest of Vuk and Danica Draskovic in June and July 1993 was 36 days long) but never has civil disobedience been this massive and this intense in so much of Serbia and never has the motto of the demonstrations been so focused on several key words which embody the civil revolution - justice, freedom, right and the will of the people.

The protest participants call themselves street walkers.

Early this week, the demonstrations were qualified as communist. That accusation was hurled against Vuk Draskovic (for paraphrasing Marx: "In this protest the workers can only loose their chains"), constitutional court judge Slobodan Vucetic (accused in a confusing comment in the state edition of Borba) and Zoran Djindjic (because his followers are well organized like the pre-W.W.II communists, Belgrade SPS chief Branislav Ivkovic said). That change of propaganda labels has to be a sign of conceptual schizophrenia.

The regime has spent the past three weeks hoping the protests will die out and people will go home. On Wednesday, the number of protesters was at its usual level with a symbolic number of Kragujevac workers and the mention of a colonel who allegedly said in public that Milosevic had violated the constitution.

The ruling elite is counting on the fact that demonstrations are not popular in stable countries. A poll in the US showed that the only publicly approved for of unconventional political behavior were petitions, that just 14% of the polled approve of legal demonstrations and that 90% don’t want to see traffic stopped. It also showed that 98% oppose the destruction of property. The propaganda against the protests in Serbia has been conducted along those lines since November 17. The Serbian state TV (RTS) is polling older people who don’t agree with the protest every day instead of covering the demonstrations.

This is not a peaceful and prosperous country in which the population condemns unconventional political behavior since the space for conventional political action has either been limited or removed systematically by the authorities.

The leaders of the demonstrations were raised in the spirit of a rebellion that marked the spirit of Belgrade in 1968. They know that taking part in a revolution like this is something erotic that leaves its mark on entire generations. They’re also counting on the fact that the same feelings that toppled the communist dictatorships in Berlin and Prague have to be present here.

Opposition leaders are hoping that the carnival mood is coming along with the Catholic and Orthodox Christmas which the authorities turned into a public holiday and St. Nicholas day and that their protest will last a spread to the workers. They keep repeating the figure of 150,000-200,000 people, the authorities keep saying the numbers are dropping.

The protest is being borne out by civic opposition followers and the process has not turned into a general strike or massive civil disobedience. The mass of people on the city streets is too small for a revolution and too big for a concentration camp. Neither side can say it has won or lost.

GSS leader Vesna Pesic defined the opposition’s strategy: "We’re waiting and counting". Zoran Djindjic said "we’ll last out a day longer than Milosevic" and added that the new 1997 will be ushered in on the streets of Belgrade. The next night he said he meant Orthodox new year on January 14.

The opposition concluded that it has go through a test of endurance and that it can’t really expect Milosevic to make fundamental concessions despite the fact that the Serbian president is being told by the international community that he’ll only harm his people if he intends to rule Serbia as an unreformed dictatorship. The opposition is publicly refusing offers to hold new elections in places Milosevic’s SPS lost (Djindjic on December 10). Djindjic said the future of Serbia is at stake. A day earlier his statement was interpreted to mean that there could be negotiations with the authorities who would have to make fundamental concessions. On Tuesday, December 10, Zajedno MPs refused to verify their parliament seats leaving the newly constituted parliament chamber without the numbers it needs for a consensus on important decisions. The threat to hand back all their seats remained a threat and could be the opposition’s trump card.

On Wednesday, November 11 the issue was unresolved. No one knew where things would or should go. The crowd fluctuates, more because of the weather than reports from election commissions and courts or the strategy of the protest leaders.

The students called the Patriarch to support them but the church sent a message saying it had to stay out of politics. Before that Vojislav Seselj was granted an audience like Mira Markovic before him. But that is good. Student movements in Belgrade are traditionally secular.

The students always carry a banner at the head of their protest column: "The Art of Hysteria". Things are slightly different in other places in Serbia, but in Belgrade peaceful street demonstrations, especially with students in them, are perhaps the best expression of the city’s wit. "Long Live Our Parents Children".

Will tears follow that releasing laughter. On Tuesday, December 12, he student column stopped in front of the Serbian Constitutional Court to leave copies of the constitution. At that moment a column of smoke burst out of the chimney on the court building, like the smoke when a new Pope is elected. We know nothing similar happened but the federal court and public prosecutor did reject appeals to review lower court rulings and the political dispute over the character of the Serbian authorities boiled down to a student banner: "Il Imperatore E Nudo". The decision to reject the appeal was maybe a little too easily taken from the standpoint of the authorities because it didn’t give the dissatisfied party a chance to withdraw honorably. Now the naked clash of political wills will decide the outcome - the will of the people from urban Serbia to mock and demean the regime on one side and the will of the internationally isolated and domestically hated authorities based on a reliance on a loyal, silent, small-town majority and media manipulation and lies, economic domination and raw force.

The world sensed that something special, much like the toppling of the Berlin wall, is happening in Serbia and ranking statesmen are demanding that the regime recognize the protest and make a deal with the opposition. The many foreign reporters in Serbia now mainly want to know if the opposition is nationalist and whether the opposition leaders are ready to deliver on the Dayton agreement. All this changes the image of Serbia in the eyes of the West and at home it lowers the amount of negative energy aimed against western countries by the amount of support that comes for the protest. That makes the socialists, communists and radicals unhappy. Milosevic seems to be trying to lie to the foreigners and convince them that the protesters in Belgrade are Karadzic followers out to topple him. His response at home was a meeting with construction company chiefs and the announcement that a highway is going to be built to the Montenegrin coast and the port of Bar is going to be deepened.

The regime would have a very hard time patching the net that seems to be bursting if its executors weren’t as loyal as they are and because it can’t survive a real crisis. There’s a visible effort to keep the work force out of the protest. The regime sought a stronghold in the town of Zagubica which seems ridiculous. Last week, the authorities began shutting down the last of the free electronic media but Belgrade’s B 92 Radio broke free. The regime then quickly launched a tabloid - Fles - obviously open to unethical scandals and libel.

Immediately after that, journalist Aleksandar Tijanic resigned as Serbian information minister saying his resignation didn’t have much to do with the current events. the pro-government Politika daily saw 52 of its journalists distance themselves from the daily’s editorial policies. It also saw Bogdan Tirnanic, a master columnist, leave. Journalists protested in Novi Sad daily Dnevnik as well. Although the regime media are being used for propaganda which runs counter to reality, the issue of media freedom and political equality has been opened again as it has been on several occasions over the past six years.

Fiasco came on Wednesday, December 11, when a regime student association tried to counter the student protest. The RTS called student protest leaders to negotiations. The 30,000-strong student column responded by passing slowly in front of the building where the talks were scheduled leaving behind a poster for the regime organization to come show how strong they are.

The judiciary sent strong signals of disapproval with the way the courts were being used. Some 150 judges distanced themselves from the way some courts acted in the election scandal.

The authorities are refraining from a use of force for now. The federal police minister said the situation is stable and traffic is having problems. That means the police won’t resort to mass beatings. They’ll go for individuals. Lower regime echelons are rumoring that some compromise decision is being prepared and saying that it’s no joke when people rebel. The authorities that came to power on a wave of unconventional popular support and is staying in power through elections in circumstances of war and a systematic obstruction of the opposition now insists that everything has to go through the competent institutions.

Maybe this is a qualitatively new situation. The street protests in the 1980s were a machine to produce a leader and this is a demonstration of the system based on a leader. A new sovereign citizen is being born here, not a new leader. The new authorities shouldn’t chase out the old authorities, it should stop its willfulness and arrogance.

If the regime is forced to back down in front of the protests it will have to walk over the corpse of the judiciary whose authority has to be systematically restored. The scores will be indirect in this game. On Wednesday, the 22d day of the protests, Djindjic said "a big mission gathered us here - we all have to come of age".