From May of last year to November of this year, the opposition parties went from "Serbia against violence" to "Corruption kills". Opposition leaders are repeating the same things and hoping for a different result
The "Serbia Against Violence" coalition was born out of civil protests against violence after the mass murders in May of last year. Among many citizens, it had awakened hope for changes, but it passed ingloriously and finally fell apart in a dispute over whether the local elections in June of this year should have been boycotted or not.
The "boycotters" and "anti-boycotters" then showed signs of rapprochement in their unison rejection of the "Jadar Project". This, however, was not the result of negotiations regarding reunification and joint action, but in the anti-lithium protests that spread across Serbia, the opposition parties recognized a chance to reanimate their own relevance.
The awakening of rebellion from tragedy
And then the canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad collapsed and killed 14 people. The protest of the people of Novi Sad that followed was autochthonous, impressive and emotional. Sadness, despair and anger hung over the capital of Vojvodina. Citizens called the responsible state officials to account, political and criminal.
The spirit of civil resistance that sank into apathy after the election debacle in December and June and the lull in protests against lithium mining was awakened by a tragedy that is an obvious consequence of a deeply corrupt system in which the basic criterion for employment in the civil service is loyalty to the leader and the party, not expertise.
That's why the public began to spread the slogan that there was no accident in Novi Sad, but a "crime", "murder", if not premeditated, then out of negligence.
"Your hands are bloody," the protesters told the authorities, both city, provincial and national.
The leaders of the parliamentary opposition parties could not watch all this idly.
Bloodless and idealess
The parties in power, under the baton of Aleksandar Vučić, closed ranks and launched the usual media counter-offensive. In order to reduce the pressure on the streets, the Minister of Construction and Infrastructure Goran Vesić was sacrificed, who was ordered to resign voluntarily.
After all that, the leaders of the opposition parties represented in the Serbian Parliament sat down to discuss what to do. It was concluded that due to the "murder" of 14 people in Novi Sad, a large opposition protest should be scheduled in Belgrade. This did not go without a dispute about when the protest should be held and whether the leaders of the parliamentary opposition should speak at it or not.
The people of Novi Sad were not asked anything.
The protest was originally scheduled for Wednesday, November 13, but for some reason, with loud bickering breaking through the closed doors behind which the conversation was being held, it was moved to Monday, November 11, Armistice Day, a public holiday, a non-working day at 17 p.m. hours. That sounded extremely frivolous.
The rally started in front of the Government of Serbia in Nemanja Street, and ended in less than an hour and a half in front of the Presidency on Andrićevo Venec. In the rain, in the cold weather, the opposition protest rally seemed bloodless and idealess; as "recycling of nonsense", as the doctor and KTV journalist Aleksandar Dikić said.
Various requests were routinely made, among other things, that Prime Minister Miloš Vucevic resign. It was known, therefore, that something was being asked for that would not be fulfilled, but no one announced what steps the opposition party would take if it did not happen.
That is, it was said that the holding of a special parliamentary session on the responsibility of Vučević and his Government for the "crime" in Novi Sad, and the formation of some kind of inquiry committee, will be demanded.
The President of the Freedom and Justice Party, Dragan Đilas, explained that they will "defeat the liar Vučić with the truth".
How does all this affect opposition-minded citizens? Do the actions of the opposition parties inspire them with hope for change, like when they barely managed to unite in the "Serbia against violence" coalition, or do they kill the idea, so they turn to themselves even more in general hopelessness?
How many people believe that this regime, which in the controlled media creates a reality according to Vučić, will "win the truth"?
A question of leadership
None of the existing opposition parties is strong enough to initiate anything alone, and they have shown that they cannot do it together.
The formal joint performance on Monday was neither convincing, nor did it exude unity. It is difficult to say whether the undoubted similarity between last year's banners that read "Serbia against violence" and this one from Monday that read "Corruption kills" evokes good or bad associations.
The first thought is that the parliamentary opposition parties, painfully aware that they can't do anything on their own, could try to agree to reunite in a coalition that could, after all, be called, "Corruption kills".
It would be a repetition of the recipe from last year, which would not have to be bad, if the leaders of the opposition learned anything from the debacle that they themselves largely caused; from the fact that countless zithers were missed; and that protest marches by themselves do not lead anywhere.
So far it doesn't seem that way. It seems that above all the question of leadership is still an insurmountable obstacle. During that time, nine participants of the protest in Novi Sad are languishing in prison, among them activists, students and a minor. Due to the collapse of the canopy that killed 14 people, no one was detained.
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The return of radical violence subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
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