Family OTPOR (RESISTANCE)

In last week's repressive government crackdown against its own citizens, the brunt was born by the young people of Serbia. First, masked intruders beat up students in the School of Architecture. Following the beatings, the future academicians were presented with an enactment of the minister of education by which all students were collectively sent on summer vacation while those who are "idle" and unfit are forbidden from entering university premises. In the other cities of Serbia things, at least as far as the young people and the government are concerned, stood somewhat differently: the onslaught was directed at Otpor activists who were, in large numbers, taken into custody by the police, picked up on the streets, in the cafes and dragged out of their beds every single day and night.

Belgrade citizen Dragana Manojlovic whose seventeen-year-old daughter Marta, an Otpor activist, was brutally beaten up in front of the City Assembly building some fifteen days ago, with an open letter called upon all parents to protect their children and upon the police to "curb the most fanatical members in their ranks". Thanks to Ljiljana Vranesevic, another Belgrade citizen who, in the night when the so-called surgeons (who hid behind surgical caps and masks in Belgrade and earned this nickname besides the already widely spread "thugs") were beating the students up, she was with them which is why the public was quickly informed of this incident.

VREME spoke to the mothers whose children are Otpor activists or who were interrogated by the police. Some of them are also Otpor activists and this is their story on how they live and how they fear for their children who are being labeled as criminals, mercenaries, terrorists or fascists by the government, while police forces are taking them into custody, how they have to endure the silence of the other parents on the repression against these young people, how they look upon violence and their childrens' decision to take the future into their own hands.

Brankica Ilic, until a couple of months ago an employee of the local police station in Arilje and now under suspension, is the mother of two sons. The older one, Branko, is a second year student at the School of Philology and Otpor activist with lots of experience, the other son is a pupil of the elementary school in Arilje: "At the beginning of May, they came to our door in order to take our younger son, a minor, into custody for having allegedly written some graffiti. I didn't allow them to take the child, they would only brainwash a child who's hit puberty at the station. We know that Branko has been active in Otpor from the very beginning. He is of age and he explained a year and a half ago that he wished for a better future and to study at a university whose diploma shall be recognized abroad. We understood and supported him. Today I am ashamed that the children have to do what our generation didn't manage to and to expose themselves to such danger."

In last year's demonstrations at the School of Philology, Branko was beaten up by yet another group of people in plain clothes carrying clubs. He had concussion of the brain. "That's when my apprehension started but I was also encouraged that a successful outcome was possible. They ousted dean Marojevic... These are dangerous times in which no one feels safe. Still, I've always supported him. I couldn't be of much help on account of the job I had. Arilje is a small town and we all know each other. I received certain cross looks on account of Branko. Parents act as they feel. The most dominating attitude is: you're going to Belgrade to study and that's all. I believe my son and I absolutely, more and more with each passing day, support him.

Otpor members aren't violent and that's good. They are fighting with the right means. They grew up in the worst times of war and poverty. I think these kids are smarter than us grown-ups. I understood that they were absolutely right in resisting when they started calling them terrorists. That's total madness and it's shameful. I don't even know what they mean by it. Everyone in Arilje knows us, our family terrorists - utter nonsense." Branka Ilic says that politics don't interest her, life does. "And life is such that no one should feel at peace. We aren't even living, we are impersonating life. I think we have to resist in a peaceful, non-violent way."

She saw her son last week in Belgrade after a long time. "I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. It was extremely difficult to find him and we only saw him for half an hour. He was wearing someone else's t-shirt, he doesn't have anything to wear, and they say he's a foreign mercenary. What mercenary? These kids aren't doing this for the money. If only we had more money. Everything would be much easier. If nothing else, I could afford to come to Belgrade more often, to see him. With our monthly family earnings of 1500 dinars, it's difficult."

She interprets the reason why she was suspended from her job at the local police station after 25 years in the service as a consequence of her son's activities in Otpor: "I'm not sorry for the money, but for all the effort I'd put into it. After all those years, it's almost like I no longer exist. I am obviously an example with which they are spreading fear amongst others." Brankica Ilic believes in her son and hopes for a better future, for her children and grandchildren: "I'm not interested in all those ugly stories about Otpor. I view Otpor through my Branko, whom I trust, and I believe we should support these kids. Which is what I'm doing. Others can do as they please. The way we and our children are living is disastrous. And disaster can come knocking on anyone's door."

In last week's crackdown on Otpor in Soko Banja, Radica Avramovic, a teacher and Otpor member, in front of her son Dragan, also an Otpor activist, and some other young men who were being taken into custody, entered into the police car of her own free will and was driven to the headquarters where, along with her son, future daughter in law, her sister and a few others, she was interrogated.

"They are taking them into custody just like they were criminals and terrorists, they are opening up police files on them. My son is no criminal, nor is he a fascist or terrorist. He hasn't harmed a soul, let alone killed anyone. I know other children who are being harassed, I was their teacher, their tutor and I can't view what they are doing to them calmly, to see how they have no future nor possibility to practice their professions in a normal manner. Which is why I absolutely justify these young peoples' attempt to do something for themselves. They are persecuting them because of their different opinions, I believe that in the 21st century everyone has a right to their own political opinion. We are not dealing with politics, that isn't our profession. Parents have an additional obligation to protect their children from untruthful qualifications. Those who don't are going along with the opinion that his or her child is a criminal or terrorist."

The citizens of Soko Banja loudly reacted against the detention of their fellow citizens. They rallied in a decent number demanding their release. The very next day the local radio station read out an announcement of the local Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) which stated that the illegal terrorist organization had written graffiti and had broken a window, which is why one group was taken into custody. The local police station didn't issue any statements. Mrs. Avramovic believes that the citizens intervened because they are well informed. "Independent media truly exists in Soko Banja. Many also listen to foreign radio stations in Serbian."

Her fellow citizens congratulated her on her defiant gesture of resistance: "I was pleased by that but I look upon it differently. Everyone should stand by their children, and real support is to be there at the right moment and to protest on account of someone's detention or arrest. An entire nation cannot be detained. That's the way I see it."

Aforementioned Dragana Manojlovic, a Belgrade citizen who, for the past four years, was forced into becoming a housewife due to the bankruptcy of her company, became an Otpor member only a few days after her daughter Marta, the girl who is recuperating these days from the brutal police beating. She says that our children could be seriously injured in case parents don't wake up soon: "The kids are being beaten and they remain silent; the kids are being taken into custody, they're silent again while the opposition is only talking. Some concrete action should be undertaken. All of us, apart from these kids, are depressed. Let's turn to them and allow them to give us some of their energy. Isn't it symptomatic why the government is attacking them? Because they're afraid of them. They are afraid of their inexhaustible energy, their intelligence, lucid actions and their refusal to accept such a life. What are we doing while our kids are throwing flyers and are being beaten? We sit at home and think it's happening to someone else's kids. We are idly awaiting the new anti-terrorism act, again believing that some other kids will be sentenced by it. I met girls in Otpor whose parents don't even know that they're activists. They say they wouldn't allow them to sign up, not because they support the government or because they are financially secure, but because they are afraid. They are forcing their children to lie to them."

Ljiljana Vranesevic, who works in film production and is a mother of three, says that she belongs to those parents who always and absolutely support their children and that she's not one of those who advise them not to rebel. Still under the strong impression of the witnessed brutality against the students at the School of Architecture at the beginning of last week, she reminds us that amongst other things, those students requested that the personal security guards of the dean of the School of Electrical Engineering be removed from the premises. They were beaten up in return.

"Children are sacred. Questions such as political inclinations no longer exist in such cases. My personal life has been threatened at the moment when my child wasn't allowed to enter his School or when someone tried to beat him up. I refuse to stop protecting my children.

It is illogical and immoral that parents didn't even come to the School to protest against the beatings aimed at their and other peoples' children.

Most of the people in Belgrade don't even know what happened. Other Serbian cities are better informed. In this country, no one is taking responsibility to inform parents that their sons and daughters were beaten up. The kids themselves are hiding it from their parents. They don't want to frighten their already frightened parents. And not only that. They can no longer handle the pressure of their parents and beatings would only serve as another argument for intensifying their parents fear. We are humiliated, crushed and scared people, morally degraded personalities. Parents fear for themselves and for their kids. They would gladly lock them up in their cupboards. And the young people simply refuse to accept this."

She mentions fear amongst the majority of the professors who are also crushed by poverty, "blackmailed by their meager wages with which they are barely able to support their own children".

She doesn't justify their behavior. She fears the future for both herself and for her kids: "If the students, with the help of their parents and others, fail to procure even minimal moral rights for themselves, they shall become a generation of losers.

They would subsequently become used to failure, and you couldn't expect any peaks from them in their lives: neither moral, human nor professional ones. This regime doesn't know what it's doing. It is burying generations of intellectuals. That's heavy, not to mention forced immigration which would follow immediately afterwards."

When we add up all the reactions of the government and the opposition, of the parents, professors and colleagues - the young people will face a long battle. The mother we spoke to hopes that they will succeed, that they will destroy "the fear which we have accepted and which has taken away our moral credibility".