With shame against fear

The fear of the totalitarian authorities that the individualism of artists could be "an unpleasant example that could be followed at other levels of organized social activities" largely determined the relations between politics and art on the territory of Yugoslavia after World War, but at the beginning of the eighties it also started determining the relations between various political concepts. The history of the protest evenings in 7, Francuska Street (the Serbian Writers' Association) also largely illustrate the change in the relations between political centers of power. The first protest evening in Francuska 7 coincided with the foundation of the Committee for the protection of artistic freedoms in May 1982. The Committee's activities spread very soon to the violation of civil freedoms and in the years that followed the Committee reacted to the violation of the freedoms of Vojislav Seselj (now leader of the Serbian Radical Party), Alija Izetbegovic (now President of Bosnia-Herzegovina), Vladimir Seks (the public state prosecutor of the Republic of Croatia), Dobroslav Paraga (leader of the Croatian Party of Rights). From the very beginning the foundation of the Committee caused a division within the leadership of the Serbian Writers' Association which culminated with Rasa Livada withdrawing his membership in the writers' association on March 28th 1983 in protect because the Association's leadership was not active enough in preventing poet Gojko Djogo from going to prison. At the same time Livada criticized all the members of the Association who "exchanged a clear conscience for disloyal agreements" with politicians. The Belgrade section of writers took the initiative and soon started organizing protest evenings for the release of the poet which lasted until May 17th when the poet was let out of prison for "health reasons". That was formally the first success of the protest evenings, but much more important was the feeling of self-confidence created in intellectual circles and it was not shaken even when the repression against culture was stepped up due to which the "Knjizevne novine" literary magazine didn't come out for a year. The next success of Francuska 7 took place after the debate called "Literary work and the cultural policy today" in January 1985 which was, in fact, turned into a protest gathering against the cultural section of the daily POLITIKA. This was followed by changes among the team of editors in POLITIKA, but also an awareness grew of the further "usability" of protests. Protest evenings continued in February 1986 because of the arrest of Dr.Dragoljub Petrovic, professor at Novi Sad University. The Writers' Association launched protest evenings for the purpose of resolving the Kosovo issue. Apart from intellectuals, it was also witnesses, citizens of Kosovo and future political leaders that took part in them. The intellectual voice of the conscience and the political need of the authorities were never closer. It is at these evenings that the Writers' Association starting directly addressing the public which culminated in January 1990 with the request of Borislav Mihajlovic Mihiz (writer), Mica Popovic (academician), and Matija Beckovic (writer), for the holding of elections for a Constituent assembly, the free formation of political parties, a ban on financing the League of Communists from the state budget and the adoption of a law on the freedom of the press. On June 15th 1990, the Writers' Association pointed out to the public that "the Serbian nation must choose its destiny and write into it the already achieved and then lost national accomplishments: a sovereign Serbian state, a parliamentary multi-party democracy and the spiritual unity of the Serbian nation". It seemed that in the ninth decade, Francuska 7 achieved what was in the beginning only a dream of its prominent members. Among the public Francuska 7 increasingly became a convincing symbol. In any case, it seemed as if the protests by the Writers' Association belonged to some other society and the author of the series of articles called "Francuska 7 - the Rebellion of the Conscience" in the POLITIKA EKSPRES daily which came out in 1991, Djordje Martic, concluded, that they belong to "the political prehistory of Serbia". It is then no wonder that many experienced the decision of the leadership of the Serbian Writers' Association taken on February 1st 1993 to start holding protest evenings "for the salvation of culture" as a return to political prehistory. Most of those who have spoken at the protest gatherings expressed the belief that they are taking place too late. "These protests should have started much earlier, when the first shots were heard and when attacks on people and towns began. I am afraid that it already too late. Still, let us not allow them reduce us to their subjects who have become malicious, let us strengthen the better side of our personality, let us continue to walk and to support each other", said Svetlana Velmar Jankovic in hear speech. She perhaps expressed in the best possible way, the belief that numerous people working in culture must now defend themselves with shame from the fear which is hovering over the entire society. In order for this to succeed, the protest evenings must return to their beginnings when the speakers spoke much more about the undisputability of the basic humanistic principles, and much less about the directions of daily politics. Over these past ten days, the protest, undoubtedly, had an educative role, that of educating the critical and humanistic public, but this role has been performed more in the form of a monologue, through an exchange of messages between like-minded people. No matter how late they started, the present protests enjoy, for the first time, the support of the media and perhaps for this reason they could now persevere in carrying out that role.