Civic Resistance, Month One

Exactly a month after the second round of local elections there was a column of lights carried by people on foot and in cars at the outskirts of Belgrade moving towards Nis to the rhythm of whistles at three a.m. They were going to meet walkers from Nis who were approaching Belgrade. Two days earlier a group of students from Novi Sad decided to walk from their city to Belgrade. A group of Kragujevac university students decided to be the third group to do the same. Then the Zajedno coalition said they would march from Belgrade to Kragujevac. Early in the morning of November 17, some people woken up by the column heading out to meet the marchers from Nis lit their house lights in a sign of support. The morning at nine the column was heading back to Belgrade to the sound of whistles.

Six hours later an assistant professor and two students from the group of marchers met with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. They handed him an open letter and copies of election records which showed that the election commission in Nis changed the election results. Milosevic received them in front of state TV (RTS) cameras and talked to them in a soft tone to a backdrop of shouting and whistling coming from outside the building. His position was made easier because while the students were marching to Belgrade the district court in Nis ordered the election commission to establish the election results according to records the opposition was invoking. Milosevic sent the documents he was given to the justice ministry with a request for the ministry to investigate all disputed facts. He said his duty was to protect the constitution, that they should be sure that the state won’t protect a single official who is caught breaking the law, that problems should be solved in our institutions and added that "your leaders" are going to foreign embassies in vain because we won’t be led by a foreign hand. The marchers who managed to hold their own but feared manipulation concentrated enough to stress that they were there as citizens not as members of any party and that they will continue their protest until the rule of law takes over in every place doubts were voiced over the election results.

So what really happened? Did Milosevic, like Tito in 1968, try to place himself at the head of the rebellion against himself and end things in his favor?

The authorities decided to meet demands and sacrifice a few people to calm the protest. Besides Milosevic, FRY President Zoran Lilic indicated that the ruling party should meet justified demands and investigate some of its officials.

A month after the second round of elections and the start of the protest which spread to some 30 cities and towns we were given a public indication from high places that the authorities intend to establish the facts and restore trust in institutions. But, they aren’t authorities with a refined style. Whether they want to admit it or not, these are provincial politicians who always act when they’re forced to do something and who always measure up the rest of the world and their opponents with the values of a village that hates city folk and destroys institutions for daily needs. Some steps were taken regardless of all that.

Besides Nis, the court in Smederevska Palanka handed the election issue back to the election commission which appealed the ruling. The republican Supreme Court ruled that the second round results should be accepted in Belgrade’s Savski Venac municipality and the Socialists appealed that ruling claiming that Zajedno had submitted forged records from a municipality assembly session although the court never invoked those records in its ruling. All that still hasn’t impressed the protesters because it all looks like a charade.

The day Milosevic met the Nis marchers, the Serbian parliament met hastily to go through 13 topics on its agenda in an atmosphere that was reminiscent of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg before the October Revolution. The parliament noted the information ministers’ resignation, adopt several laws and a decision on a panel discussion on the elections. The opposition ignored the proposed panel discussion and didn’t show up for the session saying they couldn’t make concessions. Oppositions leaders said before the session that they won’t negotiate before they’re handed back their legitimate election victory and before the propaganda war against the protesters stops.

The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) attacked the authorities for the election fraud, because the SRS was not given back the seats its dissidents won and because the authorities were flirting with the West, as well as the opposition for carrying foreign flags. The state media only reported SRS attacks on the opposition. The SRS strategy is aimed at profiting from the anti-opposition and anti-western propaganda. If the wave of protests takes the form of a basic civil conflict the SRS could prove wrong and Seselj will be a victim of the Serbian demonstrators with his voters turning away over the collaboration with the regime.

The parliament decision to call a panel discussion was formulated in a way that means nothing yet and didn’t hold up by that evening because the state media focused on Milosevic’s meeting with the three marchers.

The intonation for the panel discussion, in the few words spoken by SPS parliament group chief Gorica Gajevic, indicates that they feel Djindjic, Draskovic and Pesic should bow their heads and come to hear Gajevic lecture them on respect for the law. Some form of parliamentary debate on the situation has to happen but the Socialists don’t agree to the form in which they once made concessions. They refused a proposal by MP Vladan Batic on setting up a parliamentary investigation board. They refused an SRS proposal for a debate on the state of the nation.

They’re still not serious and that is shown by the fact that the media are still demonizing the opposition leaders. Milosevic is trying to imitate Tito once more before scheduling the parliamentary panel. His letter to US State Secretary Warren Christopher was supposed to look like Tito’s response to the Cominform letter in 1948. In 1948, Tito had Djilas at his side and the resistance to Stalin took the form of social liberalization. Milosevic’s propaganda experts published two letters and continued lying. The sharper tones are dictated by JUL who want a stricter course and public investigation into whether the opposition is getting financial and political support. The propaganda on the state media is partly JUL and partly reactions. Telegrams of support to Milosevic’s wise policies are read for hours. One of those telegrams turned out to a forgery. Workers at MIN Nis rebelled because one of their managers sent the telegram on their behalf and they staged a protest rally. That same day thousands of EI Nis workers took to the streets at the call of the students.

The Socialists organized a rally of their followers in Majdanpek which the state TV focused on. Opposition leaders said they SPS main board decided to continue staging its own rallies.

The students saw a weak point in the regime when they headed for Belgrade’s Dedinje suburb where Milosevic lives on Thursday. The police blocked their way. On December 18 they headed for Dedinje again intending to leave a sign saying "The Forbidden City Dedinje Starts Here" where the police stops them. The police stopped them again. The Zajedno protest hasn’t headed for Dedinje yet probably because the protest leaders feel they couldn’t stop their followers and don’t want to risk a clash with the police. Since Milosevic is in his office every day when the protesters walk past, the defense of Dedinje has a symbolic value. Internal Affairs Minister Zoran Sokolovic told reporters that the police had to assess the safety of the demonstrators and others.

To cover up the belated confession of election wrongdoing, the state propaganda machine focused on the flags the protesters were carrying. That serves to bring their hard-core followers closer together but will also be an unpleasant fact for Milosevic who called in the OSCE and is asking for money from the West. Recently, high ranking regime civil servants suggested forming mixed foreign-domestic banks to restore trust in the banking system.

The kids who waved western flags provoked Milosevic into launching an anti-western campaign, show the xenophobia on his face and start a campaign against foreign interference, strengthen his anti-western rhetoric and fall into Seselj’s embrace.

The state propaganda machine was switched to xenophobia the moment the regime had to admit that there was election fraud. Djindjic said one evening that he won’t remove any flag because there are no enemy flags for a democratic Serbia.

The spirit of isolationism, doubt, denunciation and propaganda war was answered on Tuesday, December 17 by the endless column of protesters who were whistling and dancing to Latin American, African and other rhythms. That urban body language showed Belgrade’s spirit of openness and mondialism and the xenophobic propaganda seems ridiculous and a search for nationalism by some foreign reporters seems anachronous.

There is no better answer than body language to the xenophobic, rigid rhetoric and reality that hasn’t managed to destroy everything in people.

In politics, like in many other things, form expresses the essence in a specific way. I won’t let my cynicism prevent me from saying that, finally, after years of shame, rigidness and suffering we’re seeing something promising inside people. Whoever hasn’t seen it should come and see something that will be image of the spirit of Belgrade, one of the world capitals with an urban spirit, for at least another decade.

Just so you can say: I was there.