Havel at the Law School

At many schools, deans appointed by the government have hatched a tyrannical regime--an atmosphere of fear, execution, lawlessness, and hopelessness. The notorious trio of deans - Antic, Marjojevic, and Teodosic - have "especially distinguished themselves" so much so that education minister Jovo Todorovic finally considered it appropriate to order that no one be dismissed because they didn't sign the famous "loyalty agreement." But, even elementary school students no longer believe Jovo El Nino really asks himself, just as the "invisible man", rector Jogos Puric: they await the decree from Dedinje.  “Everything that is happening to us is the result of the notorious, frightful, and retrograde law that is transforming the university into a mere, out and out resource of the governing politics, into some type of party school. Article 165 and similar decrees of this horrible law that demand the signing of an act of loyalty, with its insulting stipulation representing legal, moral, and cultural grotesqueness, insults the university and human dignity, destroying the best academic traditions in Serbia. With the exception of the German regime in the '30s, not one European government in the 20th century has not demonstrated so much mistrust in university personnel. Prof. Dr. Jovica Trkulja, one of the 12 law school professors already on strike for a third week due to the illegal dismissal of their colleague Dr. Vladimir Vodinelic, considers, in accordance with Article 81, paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, that they met conditions that demand the scheduling of a referendum to repeal the university law. In the meantime, Dean Oliver Antic handed pink slips to "striking" professors Dragoljub Popovic, Dragor Hiber, and Mirjana Stefanovski. Dean Antic packed this draconian and laconic gesture, unprecedented in the history of the law faculty, into the wrapping of the law concerning work relations: they didn't come to work for five working days. Professors who are on strike, like their colleagues who received dismissals, remind that, the Academic Council of the Law School, immediately after the law came into effect on May 29, pointed out all clear, dangerous consequences that such a retrograde law can bring because it "opens a wide space for political arbitrariness" and "the removal of the unsuitable,  purges among colleagues and those with differing opinions..."The Academic Council concluded that it is the task of the faculty to fight with all legal means, including collecting 100,000 signatures for the scheduling of a referendum to repeal the university law.

THE CAUSE OF EVIL: Prof. Dr. Vojin Dimitrijevic announced that the cause of the evil is not the deans the government appointed, but the law that made it possible for such people to come to the head of the faculty. They can be ridiculous, but the law makes it possible for even worse to come! Although Antic claims that "inch by inch, we work strictly by the law," the truth is completely different - the dean's dismissals were unlawful and arbitrary, including the "pardons professors Dimitrijevic and Vesna Rakic-Vodinelic. That is to say, these two met the quota for dismissal: they did not come to work for five consecutive days. Vojislav Seselj, Radical leader, vice-president of the Serbian government, and member of the Administrative Committee of the Law School, victoriously stated that he personally supported that Prof. Dimitrijevic not be dismissed, cynically ordered that they wait for the professor to rehabilitate himself in the October "exam period". Prof. Vesna Rakic-Vodinelic was most likely spared because it would be too much for both members of the Vodinelic family to be out of work. It is evident that Dean Antic works according to instructions from the top, as his daddy, leader of the Serbian Radicals, says. The commander permitted that some professors be "put out to pasture" while he spared others. Prof. Dimitrijevic does not hide his disgust at the development of events at the Law School, "The most repulsive thing is that everything reminds me of Stalinistic times. Prof. Vodinelic was thrown out onto the street with a comment that sounds strange. 'Because he didn't rehabilitate himself.' Now they are also offering me the chance to 'rehabilitate myself'. To me this is all to similar to Havel's Audience which describes how, after 1968, intellectuals in Czechoslovakia were sent on 'rehabilitative work' to breweries in order to roll barrels while the director of the brewery didn't judge any of them to be 'rehabilitated’.  “It isn't the least bit coincidental that, with regard to the  criticism concerning the imposing university law, Jirzi Dinstbir, UN Special Envoy for Human Rights, expressed his anxiety, "All that is occurring at some schools is very dangerous, because it can weaken the educational system," stated Dinstbir at a press conference after his tenth visit to Yugoslavia. Replacement of rectors, deans, and professors with every change of government inevitably does not bring anything good. Dinstbir speaks from personal experience and drew a parallel between Serbia '98 and the Czech Republic '68:  following the invasion of Soviet troops into then Czechoslovakia, all important people from the Law and Philosophical Schools were replaced while their positions were given to state apparatchicks.  "Many generations of students then lost the chance for better schooling," stated Dinstbir, who was vice-president of the government and minister of foreign affairs in Czechoslovakia after the "Velvet Revolution". It is evident that the great purge at the law school is intensively directed with more sides and more devices: one are dossiers, another way of violating the law, then dividing up into patriots and traitors, then ranking according to scholarly contribution, "rehabilitation" and "offering the chance to rehabilitate oneself.  “Everything in function is dividing the group of professors who first raised their voices against the new university law, especially the infamous Article 1165, and then went on strike when Prof. Vodinelic was illegally dismissed. On the occasion of the purge at the law school, the public turned to eight professors and associates from the university in Novi Sad. Novi Sad Law School professor Momcilo Grubas says that events at the Belgrade Law School are the logical and planned consequences of the law concerning the dispersement of the university by putting higher schools under the supervision of the ruling party. "One doesn't hear that anyone was dismissed due to moral corruption, unprofessionalism, or bad relations with students. They dismiss the best due to political unsuitability, insubordination, unwillingness to keep quiet, and the courage to demonstrate their opposing opinions and attitudes. The intention to seize the positions of these others is evident...If it continues like this, there won't be a university," says Prof. Grubas.

YOUNG STORM TROOPERS:  A leaflet of support for Dean Antic has appeared in the media from the phantom organization the Council of Students. This group does not even have the courage to publicly speak in the names of the colleagues and students they represent. In the great purge of the '70s, some law school professors were removed from the staff because they published critical works concerning constitutional changes, or because they requested the release of Prof. Mihailo Djuric, who was sentenced to two years in prison for critically analyzing individual amendments in a pubic meeting in March of 1971. Young men, the followers of Professor Kurdulija, amongst whom was the young Oliver Antic, played an important role.  All these young activists later advanced in politics as well as in their professions. They made careers mostly in state organs, party, diplomacy, international organizations, and the university.  Today’s students are extremely cynical and practical: they are looking to graduate as quickly as possible, then, to emigrate. In this hot September period, when the law school was shaken by one of the biggest affairs in its history, they  are "cooling off in the shade": it has become public knowledge that the strike breakers have no clue, and that many do not "go through the wringer" at the exams, while Antic's policy at the school is to try and get some points with students. "From the beginning of the century, when we got a university in the true sense, the law school was compared with the Sorbonne. Between the two world wars, that was one of the best European law schools," says Prof. Dr. Vojin Dimitrijevic. Is the law school on the road to becoming a party school like the rest of the university? Why was the resistance to the most oppressive university law so lukewarm? Do we need to search for the answer in the intellectual ostracism so stubbornly rooted in Serbs? Perhaps Prof. Danilo Basta, who poses the question of whether or not we actually had a university in the basic meaning of the word, offers an answer. From his answer, we conclude that we had just the beginning of a university that might have been able to stand up in the European university tradition: only one type of university where professors know what kind of criteria we need to have in scholarship and in daily life. If we had a real university, there wouldn't be this monstrous university law. The degree of self-oppression is astounding, says Prof. Danilo Basta.