Upstarts, Believers, Sycophants...

The Government of Serbia has submitted its decision on appointments of new rectors and deans.  Even though Serbia has 81 faculties, the Government has only appointed deans for 67 of them: even a cursory glance at the long list shows that moral-political suitability according to criteria of the red-black coalition was a crucial factor — concretely, membership in JUL, SPS or the Radical Party, and in the best cases, unquestioning submission to this, but also to previous regimes.  Many of the newly appointed deans do not enjoy the support of their faculties: in discussions on the new Law on Universities at their faculties they were part of emphatic minorities.  Many were awarded for condemning, sooner or later, the 96/97 Student Protests.  Of course, the Dean of the Forestry Faculty, Ph.D. Dusan Jovic, is among them — a man who was voted against on several occasions by the majority of his colleagues at his Faculty because of numerous financial and moral machinations, and because of his abuse of professors, but also of students; but the regime protects its “proven people”, which includes Vladimir Stambuk, appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Political Science, as well as Vlajko Petkovic, Dean of the Faculty of Economics; this circle also includes the new-old deans Radivoje Grbic (Medicine), Dragan Markovic (Physical Chemistry), Bratislav Atanackovic (Geography), Ivica Radovic (Biology), as well as the new Dean of the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, Milivoje Lazic, who is a mathematician!?  While the Government is speaking about the inevitability of infusing new blood into academia, this, probably the biggest reshuffle and “renewal” of university staff also includes the coming of several pensioners...  There is no end to paradoxes.  Even though the list of members of Head Committees has not yet been released, Ph.D. Milos Laban has been resurrected at the Electrical Engineering Faculty, while the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy is being sent a clear message for its support of the students’ protest: “There will be no bread without a truncheon!” — a message which was personally delivered by Dobrivoje Budimirovic Bidza.  There are other interesting and indicative staff changes: Prof. Ph.D. Mira Markovic has once again been appointed as President of the Executive Committee of the Neuropsychiatric Clinic “Laza Lazarevic” (reserved only for the most serious psychiatric disorders).  It is indicative that the Government has appointed many people from the University of Belgrade, despite their explicit disagreement, and without even seeking their acceptance!?  But that is why Seslj will be in the Executive Committees of the Faculties of Law and Economics, of the University, and even of the Institute of Social Sciences.  Members of the Executive Committee of BU include also Zeljko Simi, Aleksandar Vucic, Ph.D. Milovan Bojic and Ph.D. Momcilo Babic.  These proven individuals will circulate among several executive committees.  The Minister of Information, Vucic, is in the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Philosophy.  Radomir Bozovic in the company of the Radical Party’s Maja Gojkovic have been resurrected at the University of Novi Sad, while Laban will have company in the Executive Committee of the Electrical Engineering Faculty in the form of Srdjan Smiljkovic, whose father is an Ambassador to Bulgaria.  He probably got good references from his impassioned speech at the “counter-meeting”...

The image and work of the new Dean of the Law Faculty, Ph.D. Oliver Antic, who rode the wave which drowned autonomy at universities, probably fits best into the picture frame of the ideal dean, according to the Government of Serbia.  Professor Antic, who is also the Director of the Institute for Comparative Law, has enjoyed an incredible professional and media promotion in all those state media since he explained the “European spirit” of the new Law on Universities.  Colleagues, who are experts in this field, denounced his statements with solid arguments, accusing Antic of manipulating information, so that the Scientific-Educational Council of the Law Faculty underwent a veritable shipwreck.  Only three of the 98 members of the Council supported Professor Antic’s arguments, that is to say the new Law on Universities: these were Professor Antic, his Assistant, and the Senior Lecturer, Vladimir Stojiljkovic, the son of the Minister of Police.

Colleagues lawyers criticize Antic because the Lawyers Association, whose President he is, did not condemn the election rigging in 1996.  Professor Antic also spoke out on earlier occasions: he proposed the law according to which a recruit who has left the country without serving the army is not entitled to his father’s inheritance.  Later this proposal by an expert on inheritance law was thrown out in Constitutional Court.  Otherwise, in this Professor Antic was very near to the Mirko Jovic’s nationalists.
Oliver Antic came to the Law Faculty via politics: in the seventies he distinguished himself as one of the more active upstarts from Professor Momcilo Kurdulija’s brigade.  The young Antic especially excelled in “clearing liberals”: many people fell at that time in a period of which this Faculty is ashamed — people we interviewed said.
Colleagues ask themselves what kind of professor can he be when he claims that the Police Academy is our best faculty, because it produces the best students; when he sarcastically states that he will be sick when the committee gets together as scheduled in order to elect a colleague with whom he is not on good terms; when he indulges in morbid bragging about his collection of firearms and about the fact that his dog has a vicious bite!?  It is indicative that students also complained about Professor Antic’s incorrect and virtually sadistic behavior toward them.  People at the Law Faculty, from professors to administrators, are bracing for the rolling of heads.  They say that Oliver Antic has been the spiritus rector of evil demons at the Law Faculty