Wielders of False Fortunes

Three years separate us from the third millennium, and unless the Serbian government urgently opts for financial infusion, total collapse shall ensue in some schools of the oldest university in Serbia: the twentieth century shall draw to a close at this point by returning to the nineteenth century.

Classes at the University which had once kept abreast of Europe, at which globally acclaimed scientists taught such as Marko Lek and Simo Lozanic, have been reduced to the point of being absurd - only theoretical classes are being held: there is no budget for experiments, nor school appliances, nor scientific magazines.

From the Kapetan Misina building the acting chancellor Dragan Kuburovic publicly states that the professors of the University of Belgrade refuse to be wielders of a false future: "It is a kind of deceit which the University can no longer tolerate, not only on account of ourselves, but also on account of the future of an entire nation: these generations of students shall practically never be able to make up for all that has been lost."

This is only the latest act of the arduous many-year-long agony in which the University has found itself. When at the beginning of the nineties the institutions started to be demolished in both an institutional and outer-institutional manner - the University was demolished first, says professor Dr. Nikola Tucic for VREME. With the collapse of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav university space collapsed along with it, and the long-lasting crisis which at the University's institutions are also of a financial, organizational and faculty nature, has been dramatically intensified with the sanctions and has removed our universities from global trends.

The academic 1996/97 year is being attended by an unique generation: a generation which grew up "under the deck," at the time of deep crisis and war. Following the nationalistic euphoria of their fathers and a deep post-war depression, this generation, in keeping with Ujevic's (Serbian poet) "poetry of speed, expansion and electricity" tried and succeeded to perceive the contemporary world in a rational way along with their place in it. This generation believes it has found an answer: Belgrade is the world. Even though they are pulsating in the same rhythm with their Internet brothers and sisters, they have decided to remain here and, as they say, turn the country they were born in into a decent, European country.

Their protest, as they were convinced, was a bitter victory. The battle for the University's autonomy remains unfinished, along with an attempt to return dignity to the community of professors and students which the regime had, by open physical repression along with a selective financial disciplinary treatment of the most rebellious schools, disabled to operate normally. The pessimists are already feeling that "bitter residue of experience" and are freely quoting George Conrad, who had stated last winter while watching the students at the Plateau: "How these handsome young faces shall be sad after their victory." The ideological broom is still hitting upon those who are unfit so that the voting machine of government representatives in the Council, instead of the academic Milan Kurep, a well-known and acclaimed scientist throughout the world as suggested by the University for president of the Council of the University of Belgrade, appointed a government candidate to that position. He is the widely-unknown doctor Momcilo Babic, director of the clinical-hospital center Bezanijska Kosa, who has for now, been tripping and falling with each step in the Kapetan Misina building.

The government seems not to have learned anything from the intense, dramatic four-month-long course taught at the Student protest 96/97: the 48-hour-long ultimatum which the scientific-faculty council submitted to the government of Serbia three weeks ago has remained without a real answer. The Minister of education, Jovo Todorovic, is hiding from acting chancellor professor Dragan Kuburovic, who is threatening to resign due to the University's catastrophic situation and the Council is not holding any sessions... The longest crisis in the history of Belgrade's University is still on. The government owes the University of Belgrade 16 million dinars for financial costs only. Precisely, from the beginning of the academic year the University did not receive these funds. Employees' salaries are more than three months behind. The collegiate body of the deans and the scientific-faculty council are telling the government that funds and priorities need to be re-allocated in the republican budget, while the giddy Minister of Education Jovo Todorovic is launching an unrealistic appeal via state television and demanding the University to "have understanding for the difficult situation".

In the meantime, Prime Minister Marjanovic received an ad hoc established delegation made up exclusively of government representatives in the council of the University of Belgrade (!), headed by doctor Momcilo Babic, as well as chancellor Kuburovic. A promise was given that the government would, at its following session, adopt a program of measures which would improve the financial situation of the University. To begin with, the University would receive 200.000 dinars per day and the "quickened dynamics of paying out salaries" actually means that by May 1, the university's employees should receive their February salaries!? The question remains, naturally, whether any political will exist to improve the University's difficult financial position. A few years ago, Professor Dr. Dragoljub Kavran publicly, at a round table entitled "Education for the future", gave out unbelievable data at the time: Some 17 percent is taken from the budget for the operation of the "system of internal affairs" and only 3.5 for education and that for a single police high school, more means are allocated than for the entire Belgrade University, with all its schools and institutes! Judging by the police equipment which the citizens of Belgrade and many other cities as well could see for themselves last autumn and winter, police means are truly impressive.

This regime no longer hides that it has no education policies, while science is mostly mentioned in the appropriate parade context. The government is interested in the university exclusively as an incredibly powerful system of ideological monopoly and control of the younger generation. This regime thinks nothing of the opinion of a few thousand professors and some sixty thousand students; it has plainly demonstrated this on a number of occasions and in a number of ways in the last few years, and especially at the time of the 1996/97 Student Protest.

The many-year-long drama which had occurred on the territory of the former Yugoslavia was, amongst other things, fatal for education and science as well - this delicate sphere seeks a peaceful, cerebral environment, and this region has been devoid of such things for a long time. The University is impoverished and humiliated, yet at the same time, is too bulky and irrational.

(to be continued)