The Battle For the Professions

Judge Vojislav Simic at Belgrade’s first district court ruled last week that the state of Serbia is guilty and has to pay damages to eight refugees who were arrested, drafted, exposed to torture and sent to the front lines outside Serbia. That can rule is a precedent because it proves what the authorities denied; that conventions on refugees were violated in this country and perhaps shows the emancipation of the courts from the embrace of political pragmatism.

Just one week earlier, judiciary circles reported that acting Supreme Court chief Balsa Govedarica had been appointed head of the republican election commission. His name, in the context of objective responsibility, was linked to last November’s election scandal which embarrassed the judiciary and was resolved by a foreign commission and special law proposed by the Serbian president. At the very least, the republic’s supreme judge might have been expected to think about the moral consequences after doubts about him were made in public and say that he objectively isn’t in a position to control the elections. But, Govedarica is a party official who survives scandals; he survived one in the 1980s in Uzice and he’ll probably survive this one as well.

The current authorities and the opposition don’t seem to have realized that the three-month rebellion over the elections wasn’t just linked to the local council seats won for the opposition party elites but was a loud and clear sign that the public has been woken up morally.

This week for example, Belgrade University Rector Dragan Kuburovic couldn’t force the government to resolve even the most basic conditions needed for the university to operate and offered to resign. That offer is exactly the opposite of what probably the worst rector in the university’s history Dragutin Velickovic did during the three month student protests for the sake of ruling party interests.

Over the past few months there have been a number of attempts to consolidate professions which have to include a code of behavior and dignity by their very definition. Teachers, judges, university professors did not give up their union demands but also insisted on the dignity and virtues of their professions.

Conditions in this society were described by researchers as moral lawlessness (the words of professors Lukic) or indecision before this crisis. Prior to this winter’s rebellion research suggested the conclusion that the Serbian regime and its institutions are facing a legitimacy crisis expressed through the mistrust of most of the public and added that only the army, church, education system, health care and the academy of sciences enjoy more trust than mistrust.

Professor Predrag Bajevic told Studio B TV last week that the Serbian intelligentsia have a general fear of politics and party engagement. That diagnosis could be interesting considering the domination of the state over all institutions and the traditional handicap of the intelligentsia in politics.

Latinka Perovic spoke about the political elite and modernization in Serbia, quoting Near East magazine which said Serbian students in Russia, France, Hungary and Austria earlier this century were described as undeveloped and cursory with a very uncertain idea about independence and their traits and with the mentality of a subject. In that context, now that the opposition is speaking about engaging professionals as groups for political support, the best policy seems to be a fundamental defense of the profession from political elites because the new elites value loyalty more than competence and family ties more than neutral references; in short, they care more about sharing out their plunder than taking responsibility. A desirable political engagement by educated people must now include the hard job of strengthening institutions which are the backbone of society and those are most certainly schools and courts. That is a small prerequisite for politics to be defined by justice and reason.