Attack on the academic community: Is the continuation of the university blockade expedient?

After illegally passing the Regulation on the amendment of the Regulation on the norms and standards of working conditions of universities and faculties, the Ministry of Education in recent weeks started something that is in the domain of its legal competences - extraordinary inspection supervision at faculties. In the written supervision records, there are orders to the administrations of higher education institutions to start teaching and exams in all study programs within 8 days.

The attack on the university community in Serbia began despite the fact that the administrations of higher education institutions did not signal with a single gesture that they had given up on continuing and saving the interrupted school year. Never assuming the political values ​​of education and university, they have continuously reshaped the calendar of classes and examinations by assessing the deadlines for returning to the amphitheatres and classrooms. Even if the inspection initiative of the Ministry of Education is understood as acting on official duty, the question arises why the execution of that duty was delayed for so long. The decree, the supervision and the order (as well as the solution that is yet to follow) are evidence that President Aleksandar Vučić has lost his patience to be stubborn with the disobedient and constantly repeats that the demands of the students have been met.

The majority of the actors on the other side - the university - of course, know that the requirements have not been met, that they will never be met under the current conditions and that a return to the academic routine is impossible. However, no matter how much the teachers and colleagues who accepted the students' demands as their own are united in their belief in their validity, they are polarized on the question of the effectiveness of the blockade as a means and, consequently, of the normalization of teaching. And indeed, the decision to (not) continue classes is much more difficult and complicated than it seems at first glance. There are at least three reasons for this that should be taken into account when making a decision.

Seselj's Law

First, none of the actors of the existing socio-political discord knows what the current political situation in Serbia really is. The biggest enigma is the position of the European Union (as an umbrella organization for a multitude of more or less connected actors). According to what can be learned from the media, Vučić enjoys the so-called the silent support of European leaders, which could be in the service of a policy already tried in Latin America in the last century - at the head of a weak state is a weak president unquestioningly ready to be of maximum service to his external supporters. On the other hand, it seems that those external supporters are asking Vučić to provide the conditions for organizing democratic parliamentary elections in the undefined future, for which, if they are regular, we will have to wait two and a half years.

How these fair parliamentary elections will go while Vučić is everything in this country can be assumed, because experience teaches us that the possibilities for manipulation of the electoral process are inexhaustible (for example, coverage of the "regular activities" of state power holders in the media, as a rule, lasts several times longer than the time of presentation of all opposition parties together, and not to mention further). This means that, if nothing major changes, in the coming years we will live in dire political circumstances in which Vučić will absolutely everything he can to keep the support of the European Union (at least) until the end of his mandate in 2027.

Second, this confrontation between the government and universities in Serbia is not the first, but the third in a row. The first crackdown was carried out on the basis of the (so-called Milošćević's) Law on the University in 1992, and the second on the basis of the (so-called Šešelj's) Law on the University in 1998. In the second crackdown, which was more devastating than Milošević's and fraught with negative consequences, the anti-intellectualism of the Serbian Radical Party shined brightly. Universities and faculties have been destroyed from within by appointing eligible people to the positions of rectors, deans and council members. In that campaign of destruction, party leaders stood out - Vojislav Šešelj and, of course, Vučić himself, who were appointed as members of the council at both the university and faculty level. The Faculty of Law, Electrical Engineering and Philology of the University of Belgrade fared the worst, where ideologically deeply indoctrinated people were appointed as deans, ready to carry out purges in the teaching corps without hesitation.

Judging by this prehistory, we can expect that the confrontation with the intellectual elite of Serbia will be carried out in the most ruthless and therefore the most brutal way: the fate of universities and faculties could be decided already on the basis of stamped decrees of the Ministry of Education, even without changing the current Law on Higher Education from 2005.

The scenario of the purge at the faculties

Third, in all authoritarian regimes the ruling policy reflects the psyche of the autocrat. Until recently, we could see mimesis in the escalation of conflict in Serbia: to all forms of student rebellion against dysfunctional, to the core usurped institutions, Vučić responded with measures of a similar form, wanting to show his supporters that he is more powerful and superior in every form of struggle.

You celebrate the National Day, and I will celebrate it; you will not study, I will defend those who want to; you walk, and mine will walk; you organize a mass protest, I will organize a bigger, more beautiful, stronger, longer assembly, a fair, whatever, three-day, and seven-day if necessary; you are turning the pedals to Strasbourg, and I will reach France before you and fall into Macron's arms!

However, on March 15, Vučić changed his approach. He used force, paving the way for a reckoning with a university community beyond (his) control. That reckoning could (however difficult it may be for some to imagine) take place according to the following scenario: after the elected deans have exhausted the legal means of fighting and fail to (in accordance with the decision of the Ministry of Education) ensure the conduct of classes and exams (either because they will not make such decisions, or because they will make them but will not implement them due to a tolerant attitude towards students who will continue the blockades), the founder will cut fines, block accounts to institutions that cannot settle them, relieve the deans of their duties (either through councils or through forced administration), replace them with others, initiate disciplinary proceedings against recalcitrant teachers and associates and carry out another purge. In the end, they will loudly announce the liberation of the faculty and the end of the blockade, with loud talambas.

Intoxicated by the victory, the regime will go so far as to create an "earthly paradise" for the students who were crying out for normalization all the time, and even for those misguided people who "seeed" in the meantime, with the help of lex specialisa which will extend the school year as much as it should, enable numerous additional exam periods, lower the requirements for enrollment in the next school year. And why not - the "earthly paradise" could last and extend until the regular parliamentary elections in 2027, and even after (depending on the outcome).

If the university is still left at the mercy of the man who announced that he is drawing up a development (read: service) plan for Serbia (read: external supporters) until 2035, and the administrations do not do what they were instructed to do, the scenario presented will happen sooner or later - the blockades will be ended by force.

Blocking inertia is not the solution

This brings us to the most important and most uncomfortable question for every responsible university teacher and associate, and especially for those who are sympathetic to the students in the blockade: how, under the current conditions, to react to the beginning of the escalation of attacks and at the same time ensure that the students, even if they are thwarted, are not defeated and, more importantly, do not feel defeated (and we with them)?

Vučić cares about the continuation or loss of the school year like last year's snow. He would also allow the blockades to be perpetuated indefinitely when their only consequence would be the collapse of higher education, which he would contemptuously applaud, and divert the money intended for salaries at his own discretion. He probably wishes that the management of the faculty would turn a deaf ear to the orders handed to them and future solutions.

The reason is quite simple: as long as the students persist in the blockades until the fulfillment of six demands (with the prospect of adding new ones), and the teachers and associates remain committed to the mantra of providing unquestioning support, he is not threatened by a real political danger - and that is the loss of omnipotence. Vučić did not reach the state of uncontrollable anger expressed on March 15 because of the blockades of the faculty, but because of the growing fear of the possible consequences of smart actions in public spaces where students began to spend the free time obtained by the blockades and, perhaps most of all, from the affection, attention and love they received from citizens of the most diverse property maps, places of residence, ideological beliefs and educational profiles.

It follows from everything that has been written that two things would be fatal in the existing extremely unfavorable situation: surrendering to blocking inertia and neglecting the long-lasting historical process in which the bearers of anti-intellectualism in Serbia, from Milosevic, through Seselj, to Vučić, settle accounts with the universities. Blockades of faculties should be ended - better self-initiated than forced.

The radical confrontation with the universities should not be forgotten, but it should be remembered that it was stopped by the political death of Slobodan Milošević in 2000, that is, by a political change.

To the question whether the destruction of the university is worth further diffuse disavowal of the Vučić regime, our answer is negative, for at least three reasons.

First, it has long been clear that changes in Serbia, and with them the fulfillment of all common-sense student demands, will be possible only after the absolute ruler Vučić becomes what he should be according to the Constitution - protocol president Vučić after the election. Students should do - and teachers and colleagues should support them - what Vučić, let's be honest, worries the most and because of which he is starting to lose control: to change the current political strategy (which has never been apolitical), to start organizing into a political movement and to prepare for parliamentary elections, special or regular.

Second, the consequences of the destruction of universities in the tradition started in 1998 would be terrible and we would recover from them for a very long time, even if the Vučić regime fails in the next elections.

Thirdly, Vučić is intensifying the repression of universities because it is the only way he can compensate for the disintegration of his front on the street. If he continues to organize useless and expensive gatherings like the last one under the name "We will not give Serbia", it will most quickly and surely lead his regime into such political and economic problems that even all the previous election manipulations will not save him.

The authors are regular professors of the University of Belgrade