The Semester of Life

They gave to the citizens' movement of the strollers and demonstrators the energy and instead of wrath, clashes and violence offered the carnival formula unknown to our culture until now: their efficient response to the arrogance of the government, to the demonstration of the police force and untruthfulness of the government media has been and still is the unbelievable wittiness, deceptive relaxation and incredible persistence. The policemen read Aristotle and Dostojevski, edifying medical topics and poetry. They confirmed their wisdom, incredible endurance and, of course, wittiness once again by the action Cordon-Against-Cordon: Kolarceva street turned into the unique student campus in the heart of Belgrade, with the camp fire, the caldron in which bean dishes were prepared, morning exercises, cleaning the campus and continuous dancing in the street disco "The Blue Cordon". The majority of the professors of Belgrade University are proud about the moral and intellectual strength of their students: more than 3000 professors verified with their signatures, as some said, the most important semester of their lives, but also many of the grayed professors’ heads and also many female professors, stood in the cordon between the police and the students and in that unique lecture of history were on duty day and night in the winter, fog and glaze of January. They have ignored with dignity the rector of the University who had called them "a handful of the manipulated" and sent the word to him that he their rector no more. They do not ask for his resignation but his replacement, because he was appointed to the rectors' office in spite the will of the people from the University.

Who are the leaders of the Student Protest 97/96? Who are the students leading the protest which has been going on for three months already in the streets of Belgrade. They are persistent, determined, endlessly charming and skilled as diplomats. Also in the negotiations with the government, foreign diplomats who more often ask to meet those young, clever and beautiful representatives of Serbia.

Until the beginning of the protest they did not know each other, and now they are gathered in the Initiative Board and the Main Board of the Students Protest 96/97 which consist of the representatives of all schools of the University of Belgrade. As genuine contemporary street guerrillas, some of them even consider it should not be said how many of them there are, although personally they do not hide their identity and are very kind and patient in their communication with the press. Although they had three sleepless nights behind them, they are right in time for meetings; in case of running late, they inform you by phone. The member of the Initiative Board Goran Pavlovic is a fifth year student of the School of Electrical Engineering; he says that they are actually only a service department and that the real heroes are those boys and girls who stood in front of the police cordon for many days and nights. The threats coming from the rector that he might flunk the year do not scare him: "If our protest does not end successfully, then our diplomas are worthless in this country too." Goran’s parents are in Cacak, his father is a graduate economist and his mother a chemical engineer, and both of them are not getting their salaries "but managing somehow like the vast majority of Yugoslavs". Zeljko Bojovic, a fourth year student of the School of Civil Engineering, thinks similarly. He is from Sirogojno; his father is a driver who earns 180 dinars monthly and even that with five months delay: "Our protest is our investment into our future, but also into the future of our parents. I do not wish to wind up in front of the Canadian, New Zealand or South African Embassy, I wish to remain here."

Igor Zezelj is a fourth-year student of the School of Traffic Engineering. He thinks that it is of the greatest importance that they have support from the majority of deans and professors and that the fear has been eliminated. His father is a university professor.

Cedomir Jovanovic is a third year student at the Academy of Drama and probably is the most popular face not only in the Initiative Board but of the entire Student Protest 96/97. He is from Belgrade, his parents are graduate economists, his sister is a student too and he says that the relations in his family are idyllic. His parents never set limitations to him nor tried to influence his decisions.

Ceda’s name is on the badge too: "Marry Me Ceda!". The students had their pictures taken with him at a cost of 4.5 dinars per shot, and the money was deposited into the vault of the Student Protest 96/97. All this is the confirmation of our sense for humor, says Ceda.

This tall fellow with an ear-ring, a former water polo player, diver, journalist, beach guard (has served his military obligation) stuns the chroniclers of the students protest with his endurance: in the worst days he did not sleep for three days and three nights. In a way he resembles the male Aska (a famous character from the story by Ivo Andric): in the long nights when they were not to give for even a second to the police cordon, he read poetry and spoke.

Ceda Jovanovic is the famous leader of the students strolls, but also is the member of the narrowest circle of the students management who negotiates with the government. He transferred calmly and clearly to the rector and the minister Mladenovic the opinion of his generation that they are ashamed to find them heads of such important resorts. The professors Velickovic and Mladenovic did not try to reply to these serious words, they have sent their "passwords" to someone else, to the one who had chosen them. Ceda was in the delegation that negotiated with the representatives of the government, army, police and judiciary... "We are trying to be the bridge which Serbia will cross to overcome the deepest crisis in its history," says Ceda.

He was interviewed at Vreme after the talks with the Russian foreign affairs minister Ivanov:

"We were invited there. All foreign delegations that we have met so far agree in one thing: The Student Protest is the spine of the popular protest in Serbia. Everyone joined us on Kolarceva street - there is no other political force that has the same support as we do. There is nothing sensational about it - we do not fight for power and we have clean hands and clean hearts."

After a sleepless night Ceda was facing another usual day: the Main Board, the Plato, the stroll, the City Institute for Transfusions where the students gave blood for the second time. That cold winter day on the Terazije and in many nearby streets the police were sitting in those ten luxurious buses coming from all over Serbia.

Leaving us, Ceda sends the message again that they will endure and win. We believe that those guys from the Student Protest 96/97 "along with other virtues that tolerance brings will be skeptic enough not to be passive cynics, but neither ideological fanatics nor political sectarians", as Latinka Perovic has put it wisely. They also have that which the generations responsible for their gloomy future lacked - together with wisdom and courage they also have a grain of salt.

Oliver Dulic, the member of the Initiative Board is only 21 but is already a fourth year student of the School of Medicine: "I started school early...". He is from Subotica, his father is a civil engineer and his mother is a professor. He has three brothers.

"I felt the worst after the counter-meeting when the police started beating us and our friends were injured. I thought: this is the beginning of the civil war. It was especially hard on me because one of my brothers is in the special police forces. He came to Subotica to Belgrade with his unit by bus every day for 60 days. He claims that 90% of the people from his unit are supporting changes, that they are not defending the regime of Slobodan Milosevic but when it came to the beating in the streets of Belgrade, we quarreled. Since the protests have started my father came to visit me in Belgrade - it made me very happy to see him with the biggest whistle in the world."