On Friday, May 12, tens of thousands of citizens joined a protest walk through the streets of Belgrade, and the same thing happened only a few days before. These citizens were driven to protest first of all by their deep dissatisfaction with the way the government responded to the shocking and terrible events that befell us in just a few days.
A number of opposition parties and movements showed themselves to be up to the moment and were able to provide an appropriate political response to that dissatisfaction - Ne davimo Beograd, SSP, People's Party, Zajedno, Democratic Party, PSG. Deputies of those parties gathered on May 05 and agreed to invite citizens to the street. They also set clearly defined demands, all of which are directly or indirectly (but no less significantly) connected to the tragedies that have hit our society.
On Monday, May 08, citizens responded to this call and took to the streets in large numbers, not only in Belgrade, but also in Novi Sad, and in some other cities of Serbia.
In the meantime, one of the demands of the opposition was adopted. Minister of Education Branko Ružić submitted his irrevocable resignation. We have come to recognize the idea of the principle of responsibility - something that has not existed in Serbia for decades. Then these same people, those opposition MPs of these parties, managed to collect the signatures of more than a third of MPs and to force the government to fulfill the request related to convening a session of the National Assembly which will be devoted only to the state of society and measures to start its healing . All these days, those people are not making mistakes, but only the government, which with its arrogance and lack of feeling for what the citizens feel, led to twice as many people taking to the streets of Belgrade on Friday than on Monday.
The inertia of free Serbian media
However, our opposition does not have to fight only against SNS and SPS. She also has to deal with a certain inertia of the Serbian free media, the only ones where she has the opportunity to appear. Namely, what is the free media doing that reduces the chances for us citizens of Serbia, their listeners and readers, to see a change in the system that is destroying us in the foreseeable, acceptable time?
First, it is the constant promotion of the completely failed idea that politics is possible without politicians and political organizations. It is the voluptuous repetition of a meaningless mantra such as politicians don't lead the columns (and this time they actually lead them), because the people don't want politicians and they didn't come out because of them.
Well of course not. These are not party rallies, but serious political protests. Politicians call for political protests, but the protests themselves are dedicated to a specific social issue. For a counterexample, see what's coming up on May 26.
Constant and undisguised contempt for any form of political organization has become a kind of mantra of passive citizens. We have been destroying Serbian political organizations for 12 years, mocking the creation of new ones, and then we wonder how Aleksandar Vučič and SNS manage to win elections where the opposition is unable to provide controllers in even half of the polling stations. Well, that is one of the things that "the people" or "citizens" cannot do. To provide 30.000 trained controllers, 2 to 3 for each polling station in Serbia to ensure fair elections.
Or, if on May 26, many of our fellow citizens receive threats that they will be fired if they do not appear at the call to go to the government meeting, will "the people" or "citizens" organize legal teams to defend them, to spread their claims through the media destiny, to gather people to stand in their protection? We were offered the suicidal idea that the smartest way to fight against a perfectly organized and cruel political machine, such as the SNS with its Trabants, is complete disorganization.
Attention directed at the wrong people
Those Serbian politicians who designed, organized and carried out these protests, primarily the MPs of the previously mentioned parliamentary opposition parties and movements, were for inexplicable reasons put in the position of having to fight for media space. The Serbian free media largely give their front pages and their time to people who have nothing to do with these protests, or who simply did not participate in their organization.
Zorana Mihajlović received more attention from the Serbian free media than the deputies who called the people to the streets. The presidents of some parties that did not support and did not participate in the organization of the protest get a space that those who stand in their front row can only dream about. Here, we have to ask ourselves whether the Serbian free media is afraid of the thought that it can be done differently, that it can be done better, that there is still hope. So they persistently keep us in the past with people to whom Serbia said political goodbye a long time ago (e.g. Boris Tadić) and do not give us the space to meet those who not only offer themselves as representatives of the people, but also do something real, and that far more successfully than their predecessor.
Well thought out protest demands
There is also a very striking attitude towards the demands of the protest. This time, our MPs did exactly what they were supposed to do. They thought out the requirements well. They are not political. Politician requests would be those that would demand from the authorities what could not be obtained in the elections. For example for Vučić to resign, even though he won votes in the elections. That the SNS hand over power, even though it has a majority in the parliament. If you are not ready for a revolution, then these are only political demands. And October 5 came as a consequence of the elections held on September 24, 2000. And anyone who has even a little experience with Serbian politics knows that reckless and political demands are the best way to disappoint citizens again.
What these opposition political parties and movements were looking for is related to the tragedies that have hit our society. And in order to confirm that, it is enough to see how the media demands of the opposition coincide with those of our high school students. They are almost identical. Or, on the other hand, the demands for responsibility with those of the Council of Parents of Elementary School Vladislav Ribnikar. The fact that they refuse to have the commemoration of the murdered children under the roof of some state institution speaks volumes about the existence and need to recognize the objective responsibility of the highest representatives of the government. The political request for convening a session of the Assembly is so natural and normal that no words should be wasted on it.
These political parties and movements also managed to do something else important, something that this time clearly separates them from many of their predecessors. They did not lie and did not mislead the citizens. They did not offer them a colorful lie of an easy political solution. They did not promise that Vučić would fall only if enough of us gathered. They didn't lie to them that everything would go quickly and easily. It won't!
In order for us to have a chance to change something, we must first build political organizations that will be able to fight for the machinery of SNS and SPS. Our society is so sick that the road to its recovery will be long and arduous. And this time at the head of the column we have politicians who did not hide this truth from us. It seems to me that the media that we trust, but also that we support, have recognized little of this, and they have almost voluptuously focused on criticizing the demands, whether they were set too broadly, or whether they were set too narrowly. Whereby this very criticism, to be cynical, speaks in favor of the fact that they are placed exactly as they should be.
The opposition should appear in several columns
Finally, there is the pernicious siege of one column, the "all-Serbian unity" in which we all fail together, and we never manage to achieve anything. Of course, this is just my personal opinion, but at the end of the day, I don't have anything else. This time, the right-wing parties, DSS, POKS, Zavetnici and Dveri made it clear that they were not part of the protest. And that is something that is good. Because that only creates a watershed between political organizations. And citizens can choose much more easily. One column prevents us from seeing the differences that are crucial for what we want Serbia to be. There are serious not only moral, but also ideological differences between political parties.
Serbia will not be saved just by the act of Vučić's departure. As it was not saved only by the departure of Slobodan Milošević. Our enemies are not individual personalities, but system and ideology. We cannot be strategically united by fighting for individual goals. Even a Nazi can love nature. Being against Vučić can also be someone who has political views that would make me choose Vučić rather than that person. Therefore, it is crazy to gather if we do not even agree that the government should be replaced at any cost. Tactical compromises almost as a rule eat away at the essence.
For example I do not think that the government led by Mladen Obradović and Dr. Nestorović would be better than this one. Nor do I think that it would be a government led by right-wing parties. However, even though a large number of Serbian citizens think as I do, the proposal that principles and ideology are taken into account by a large part of the free media is almost as a rule met with disapproval and mistrust. Since it would probably be normal to recognize Dr. Jovana or Miša Vacić as possible political allies. In the name of concord.
I could never be a good politician, for many reasons, including selfishness. And I have great respect for those who chose that calling, because they do what a democratic society cannot exist without. Of course, their criticism goes without saying. Of course we have the right to ask and the right to disagree. But we would have to give them a chance to do what we ask of them. And that is what the Serbian free media is not doing to the right extent at the moment. And this is the appeal of one of their faithful readers and viewers that the time has come for something to change.
I also accept the answer that it is not the media's obligation to support, unless it is a party newsletter, but what I perhaps confusedly tried to define is some kind of support for the Serbian free media that I addressed partly because I believe that they in these times of sharp "differentiation" decided not only for the truth, but also for the right of all of us to a normal future.
The author is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade
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